St. Patrick's Day Eve

For my family, St. Patrick's Day is really just an excuse to have corned beef and cabbage. I eat cabbage year round, but I only have corned beef once a year. I know there will be a lot of green beer, Irish stew and soda bread out there tomorrow, but I'll pass on those.

Why is it that when we boil cabbage, it really stinks up the house? When I saute it in a tiny bit of oil and some chicken broth, the smell is not bad at all.

I have wanted to try red cabbage, but have always talked myself out of it because of the price. I saw it at one grocery store earlier this week for $1.69 a pound. Right now I can buy green cabbage for nineteen to thirty-three cents a pound, and I will not invest five and a half times that much just to try red cabbage. I stopped at Fry's on the way home from the doctor yesterday to get the corned beef and cabbage. Someone had apparently requested a half head of red cabbage and I got the other half. Also, it was on sale for $.69 a pound so that made it practically irresistible. I am looking forward to trying it.

My doctor visit yesterday was a routine followup visit because I canceled my November appointment. He told me that as far as he can tell I'm pretty healthy. My blood pressure was 116 over 60 and I didn't look at my weight because I was fully clothed and wearing shoes and didn't want to see that number. I did weigh this morning and am back down to 131.6.

I saw the BMI reading of 23.8 before I got off the scale. After the doctor said that he sees 50 year old people that are not as healthy as me and have lots of problems, I told him I work at it. He had told me before that he has a bad heart, but he said although he can't change his genetics, he can take care of himself and exercise and "not eat crap." Agree!

Still, he did want me to do some more blood work to see if I was still anemic and if my sugar was high. Since the paper for the lab said "no fasting", I went home and had lunch and then went on to the lab and got it done. The lady taking blood put five vials out there and I said it was a shame that I was anemic and she was going to drain me dry. She told me to go home and drink a lot of water and I would replace it very quickly. I drink a lot of water anyway.